A father is the maleparent of a (human) child. A biological father is the male genetic contributor to the creation of the baby, through sexual intercourse or sperm donation. An adoptive father is a male who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. As a parent, the father has a social and legal relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations, although this varies between jurisdictions. A biological father may have legal obligations to a child not raised by him, such as an obligation of monetary support. A putative father is a man whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established.

The adjective "paternal" refers to a father and comparatively to "maternal" for a mother. The verb "to father" means to procreate or to sire a child from which also derives the noun "fathering". Biological fathers determine the sex of their child through a sperm cell which either contains an X chromosome (female), or Y chromosome (male).[1] Related terms of endearment are dad (dada, daddy), papa/pappa , papasita, (pa, pap) and pop. A male role-model that children can look up to is sometimes referred to as a father-figure.

The legal rights of a father with regard to his children differ widely from country to country often reflecting the level of involvement and roles expected by that society. These include paternity leave, custodial rights in the case of unmarried or divorced fathers, fathers rights in the case of adoption.

Paternity Leave. In some countries in Europe men are granted equal paternity leave to a woman's maternity leave. In other countries men are not given paternity leave at all. In the case of same-sex couples adopting the law often makes no provision for either one or both partners to take time off to bond with their new child.

Custodial Rights In the case of shared custody between two separated parents the law often privileges the rights of the mother over the rights of the father. The fight for equal rights for fathers has led to the Father's Rights Movement which aims to interrogate and challenge inequality within Family Law

The role a father plays in his children's lives differs from culture to culture. In almost all cultures fathers are regarded as secondary caregivers. This perception is slowly changing with more and more fathers becoming primary caregivers in single parenting situations, male same-sex parenting couples and heterosexual parents.

Fatherhood in the Western World In the West, the image of the married father as the primary wage-earner is changing in the face of evidence that fathers may be married or single; gay or straight; living with their own children or raising others’ children, living nearby or out of the country, or incarcerated. The social context of fatherhood plays an important part in the well-being of men and all their children.[2] In the U.S., 16% of single parents are men.[3]

Conservitive/Traditional Roles

Traditionally, fathers act in a protective, supportive and responsible way towards their children.

Importance of Father or Father-figure.

Involved fathers offer developmentally specific provisions to their sons and daughters throughout the life cycle and are impacted themselves by doing so. Active father figures in heterosexual relationships may play a role in reducing behavior and psychological problems in young men and women.[4] An increased amount of father–child involvement may help increase a child's social stability, educational achievement, and their potential to have a solid marriage as an adult. Their children may also be more curious about the world around them and develop greater problem solving skills.[5] Children who were raised with fathers perceive themselves to be more cognitively and physically competent than their peers without a father.[6] Mothers raising children together with a father reported less severe disputes with their child.[7]

The father-figure does not always have to be a child's biological father and some children will have a biological father as well as a step- or nurturing father. When the biological father dies, or divorces, the mother may marry a second man who becomes the stepfather of the child. Where a child is conceived through sperm donation, the donor will be the "biological father" of the child, and if the mother has a male partner, he will be the father.

Fatherhood as legitimate identity shared by specific men and their children can be dependent on domestic factors and behaviors. For example, a study of the relationship between fathers, their sons, and home computers found that the construction of fatherhood and masculinity required fathers display computer expertise.[8]

According to the anthropologist Maurice Godelier, the parental role assumed by human males is a critical difference between human society and that of humans' closest biological relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—who appear to be unaware of their "father" connection.

Since Roman times fatherhood has been determined with this famous sentence: Mater semper certa; pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant ("The [identity of the] mother is always certain; the father is whom the marriage vows indicate"). The historical approach has been destabilised with the recent emergence of accurate scientific testing, particularly DNA testing. As a result, the law on fatherhood is undergoing rapid changes.

Like mothers, human fathers may be categorized according to their biological, social or legal relationship with the child. Historically, the biological relationship paternity has been determinative of fatherhood. However, proof of paternity has been intrinsically problematic and so social rules often determined who would be regarded as a father, e.g. the husband of the mother.

An individual who is a genetic chimera could theoretically have more than one biological father. No example of this has been reported but human chimeras were unknown to exist until recently and scientists are currently uncertain as to the extent of chimerism within the human population.[9]

The link between sexual acts and procreation can be empirically identified, but it is by no means of immediate evidence. The conception of life cannot be observed, whereas its birth is obviously visible. The extended time lag between the former and the latter certainly does not help to identify their link, but on the contrary it makes even more difficult to assume any kind of relationship between these two events. Some may even go as far to argue that human beings have occasionally ignored that males impregnate females.[10] During this extended period procreation was sometimes even considered to be an autonomous 'ability' of women: men were essential to ensure the survival and defence of the social group, but only women could enhance and reintegrate it through their ability to create new individuals. This gave women a role of primary and indisputable importance within their social groups.[11][12]

This situation probably persisted during the whole Palaeolithic age. Some scholars believe the well-known Venus figurines of that age to be clear witnesses of it. During the transition to the Neolithic age, agriculture and cattle breeding became the core activities of a growing number of human communities. Breeding in particular is likely to have led women – who used to spend more time than men taking care of the cattle – to observations and considerations which gradually allowed them to discover the procreative effect of the sexual act between a male and a female.[13]

For communities which looked at sexuality just as a source of pleasure and an element of social cohesion without attaching any taboo character to it, this discovery must have led to a sense of upset[14] with consequences not only on the regulation of sexuality itself, but on the whole political, social, and economic system. The time to arrive to sufficient certainty about the mechanism of life conception must have been very long, but this time length cannot have prevented the implications of this acquired certainty from being extremely dramatic.[12] Eventually, these implications led to the model of society which – in different times and shapes – was adopted by most human cultural communities.

Still today, this social model founded on the capacity of the man to fecundate women tends globally to prevail:[15] this capacity allowed men to free themselves from the secular frustration derived from having recognized only to women the ability to generate life and led them to configure a society affirming their supremacy over women. And, of course, their supremacy over the human beings they created: their children.[16] We find an enlightening example of this social development in Aeschylus's tragedy The Eumenides. The Coryphaeus of the Erinyes blames matricidal Orestes for having shed his own blood, but God Apollo replies that this is absolutely untrue because the mother is only a wet-nurse and not a progenitor of the child, whose blood derives from his/her unique parent: the father. This argument is accepted by the judges and Orestes finally obtains a verdict of not guilty. The extreme position taken here by God Apollo did not find complete acceptance, not even in Athens. In the regions where this position originally prevailed, it was gradually abandoned facing improving scientific explanations of human procreation. But traces of this position can still be found today in some cultural systems.

Traditionally, caring for children is predominantly the domain of the mothers, whereas the father in many societies provides for the family. Since the 1950s, social scientists as well as feminists have increasingly challenged gendered arrangements of work and care, and the male breadwinner role, and policies are increasingly targeting men as fathers, as a tool of changing gender relations.[17]

Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman who, according to legend, killed her father after he imprisoned and raped her. She was condemned and beheaded for the crime along with her brother and her stepmother in 1599.

Lizzie Borden (1860–1927) allegedly killed her father and her stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892. She was acquitted, but her innocence is still disputed.

Baby Daddy – A biological father who bears financial responsibility for a child, but with whom the mother has little or no contact.

Birth father – the biological father of a child who, due to adoption or parental separation, does not raise the child or cannot take care of one.

Biological father – or just "Father" is the genetic father of a child

Posthumous father – father died before children were born (or even conceived in the case of artificial insemination)

Putative father – unwed man whose legal relationship to a child has not been established but who is alleged to be or claims that he may be the biological father of a child

Sperm donor – an anonymous or known biological father who donates his sperm to be used in artificial insemination or in vitro fertilisation in order to father a child for a third party female. Also used as a slang term meaning "baby daddy".

Surprise father – where the men did not know that there was a child until possibly years afterward

Most male waterfowls are very protective in raising their offspring, sharing scout duties with the female. Examples are the geese, swans, gulls, loons, and a few species of ducks. When the families of most of these waterfowls travel, they usually travel in a line and the fathers are usually the ones guarding the offspring at the end of the line while the mothers lead the way.

The female seahorse (hippocampus) deposits eggs into the pouch on the male's abdomen. The male releases sperm into the pouch, fertilizing the eggs. The embryos develop within the male's pouch, nourished by their individual yolk sacs.

Male emperor penguins alone incubate their eggs; females do no incubation. Rather than building a nest, each male protects his egg by balancing it on the tops of his feet, enclosed in a special brood pouch. Once the eggs are hatched however, the females will rejoin the family.

Male beavers secure their offspring along with the females during their first few hours of their lives. As the young beavers mature, their fathers will teach them how to search for materials to build and repair their own dams, before they disperse to find their own mates.

Wolf fathers help feed, protect, and play with their pups. In some cases, several generations of wolves live in the pack, giving pups the care of grandparents, aunts/uncles, and siblings, in addition to parents. The father wolf is also the one who does most of the hunting when the females are securing their newborn pups.

Dolphin fathers help in the care of the young. Newborns are held on the surface of the water by both parents until they are ready to swim on their own.

A number of bird species have active, caring fathers who assist the mothers, such as the waterfowls mentioned above.

Apart from humans, fathers in few primate species care for their young. Those that do are tamarins and marmosets.[18] Particularly strong care is also shown by siamangs where fathers carry infants after their second year.[18] In titi and owl monkeys fathers carry their infants 90% of the time with "titi monkey infants developing a preference for their fathers over their mothers".[19]Silverback gorillas have less role in the families but most of them serve as an extra protecting the families from harm and sometimes approaching enemies to distract them so that his family can escape unnoticed.

Many species,[citation needed] though, display little or no paternal role in caring for offspring. The male leaves the female soon after mating and long before any offspring are born. It is the females who must do all the work of caring for the young.

A male bear leaves the female shortly after mating and will kill and sometimes eat any bear cub he comes across, even if the cub is his. Bear mothers spend much of their cubs' early life protecting them from males. (Many artistic works, such as advertisements and cartoons, depict kindly "papa bears" when this is the exact opposite of reality.)

Domesticated dog fathers show little interest in their offspring, and unlike wolves, are not monogamous with their mates and are thus likely to leave them after mating.

Male lions will tolerate cubs, but only allow them to eat meat from dead prey after they have had their fill. A few are quite cruel towards their young and may hurt or kill them with little provocation.[citation needed] A male who kills another male to take control of his pride will also usually kill any cubs belonging to that competing male. However, it is also the males who are responsible for guarding the pride while the females hunt. However the male lions are the only felines that actually have a role in fatherhood.

Male rabbits generally tolerate kits but unlike the females, they often show little interest in the kits and are known to play rough with their offspring when they are mature, especially towards their sons. This behaviour may also be part of an instinct to drive the young males away to prevent incest matings between the siblings. The females will eventually disperse from the warren as soon as they mature but the father does not drive them off like he normally does to the males.

Horse stallions and Pig boars have little to no role in parenting, nor are they monogamous with their mates. They will tolerate young to a certain extent, but due to their aggressive male nature, they are generally annoyed by the energetic exuberance of the young, and may hurt or even kill the young. Thus, stud stallions and boars are not kept in the same pen as their young or other females.

Finally, in some species neither the father nor the mother provides any care.